


What Moonjumper says

by lemonadesoda



Series: And I don't think you hate this as much as you wish you did [7]
Category: A Hat in Time (Video Game)
Genre: Angst, Dadtcher, Hurt/Comfort, Oh the Humanity AU (A Hat in Time), Other, QPR Moonjumper & Snatcher, Queerplatonic Relationships, nonlinear storytelling, oth!au
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-30
Updated: 2020-12-30
Packaged: 2021-03-10 18:09:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,990
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28421487
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lemonadesoda/pseuds/lemonadesoda
Summary: There is a lot Moonjumper doesn’t say. They’re waiting, he knows, for his cue.
Relationships: Bow Kid & Snatcher (A Hat in Time), Hat Kid & Snatcher (A Hat in Time), Moonjumper & Snatcher (A Hat in Time)
Series: And I don't think you hate this as much as you wish you did [7]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1999939
Comments: 23
Kudos: 87





	What Moonjumper says

**Author's Note:**

> Overlaps with Lab Notes

> _Let me know what plagues your mind. Let me be the one to know you best. Be the one to hold you up when you feel like you're sinking. Tell me once again what's beneath the pain you're feeling. Don't abandon me or think you can't be saved._
> 
> _-Dream Theater, “I Walk Beside You”_

He calls Moonjumper. Like clockwork, until it becomes habit. When they pick up, they no longer expect the kids on the other side of the line.

“I’ll be right there,” they say by way of greeting, and Snatcher hangs up right after because they’re already on the way.

This time, Snatcher sits in the kitchen, head in his hands, still reeling after the revelation that he is a key component to the repair of the Time Piece. Moonjumper sits next to him, ever waiting. He wonders if their patience with him is ever going to run out--for good this time. How many times can he keep summoning them to hold his head above water without offering any olive branch in return? It’s not something he can ask without sounding insultingly pragmatic.

It’s still a struggle, sorting out his feelings and then finding the words to describe them. Still, like learning how to cook and clean, he’s had to pay closer attention in order to get by.

“I can’t stay like this,” Snatcher says, breaking the silence, and the statement clenches like a fist in his chest. (And not only for the reason he thinks.)

“You won’t have to,” they reply. “We’ll help you.”

“I’m the only one who can actually do this part, though. Even with all your help…” He could still fail in the end, he doesn’t say. He runs a hand through his hair, slumping lower on the table.

“If you do end up stuck,” Moonjumper says steadily, “what happens then?”

This is the dance they’ve begun in stuttering steps. Snatcher will excavate his clumsy emotions, the raw surface thoughts that are the easiest to catch and shape into conversation. Moonjumper will delve, redirecting, guiding his focus to what lies deeper.

“The forest freezes. The Subconites, the dwellers, everyone.” That’s not the only fear, just the most tangible one.

“I’ll protect them.”

“You can’t forever.”

They shift beside him. “What makes you say that?”

Snatcher pauses, the rhythm tangling and stumbling. They aren’t defensive, and that’s what trips him up. Because now he has to actually sort out why they couldn’t take over for him indefinitely. They’re just as strong as he was as a spirit.

“You have a business to run,” he tries half-heartedly.

Moonjumper snorts and thumps the table. “I don’t _need_ to do that, you know!”

Snatcher shrugs. “I just mean you got other things going on. But Subcon is-” He hesitates, the force of his devotion to it cloying and sticking in his throat. It’s a feeling too dense to casually rattle out. “It’s mine.” He hopes, as he often does with Moonjumper, that the layers in “mine” translate. Not the way a child claims a new toy, nor the way the jealous lover claims her beloved. His is the claim of gardener, of guardian. _His_ forest, _his_ home, _his_ burden. And so it claims him too, winds its roots through the heart of him.

Moonjumper watches him for a while, letting his words settle before building upon them. “I know. That’s _why_ I would look after it.”

It takes Snatcher back to the week before the cruise, when glowing threads wrapped a protective cocoon around the forest and whispered that all would be well in his absence. Like him, Moonjumper speaks words within words, and once again Snatcher wants to ask them why they stick around. They don’t _need_ to hold onto the memories of the Prince. They could divorce themself from it entirely, declare it a mere holdover from their vessel, but instead, they tell him that even if all things fail, they would protect the thing most dear to him when he has done nothing to deserve it.

He wants to ask them why, but he’s afraid to hear the answer.

“What am I supposed to do then?” Snatcher asks instead, throat dry. “Sit around and do nothing until I die?”

Moonjumper frowns. “You aren’t sitting around doing nothing now. Why not keep doing what you’re doing?”

What he’s been doing is taking care of kids. Very, very independent kids. “I can’t do _that_ forever.”

“Maybe not, but it’ll keep you busy enough for a while.”

Snatcher peers at them. “You think they’d stick around enough for it to be a while?”

They give him a shrewd look right back. “Snatcher, come on. Use your eyes.”

And see what? He rubs the backs of his hands, hunching slightly. He remembers falling asleep with two heads leaning against him on either side, remembers two little hands holding his. The question comes up again: why? And then the next question: how long would that last? They have to spend almost every waking hour with him, so it’s only natural that they’ve gotten closer, but that’s different from being worth staying for.

“And then after a while is over?” he asks.

“Well, if it comes to that, I’ll still be around,” says Moonjumper.

And after that? Snatcher wonders. As a ghost, the idea of “after” didn’t really matter much when time meant almost nothing. He could mill about, unaware of the passage of days until he ventured away for a moment to discover someone had invented some new technology since he last checked. He’d put in the time already to rebuild his identity and who he was wouldn’t change from one day to the next. Life, on the other hand, seemed to be nothing but cycles, nothing but the continuous awareness of time and its passing. And change too, seemed to happen every minute, the continuous birth and annihilation of selves. Who would he be tomorrow morning? Who would he be next week? Impossible to tell. Snatcher stands, grabbing his usual mug and starts the kettle. 

“This is all hypothetical, remember,” Moonjumper continues. “You haven’t even started yet. It could all work out.”

“Yeah, right, when has that ever happened for us?” He swings the mug around as he gestures.

“You hit it big at the slot machine on the cruise,” they say with a cheeky grin.

Snatcher rolls his eyes. “Yeah, that’s what I call ‘working out.’”

“I mean, it did give you the chance to have a good ol’ laugh at the Mafia.”

He points at Moonjumper. “That _was_ funny.” That was the same night the two of them had that big argument though. Snatcher drums his fingers on the counter as the bubbling in the kettle increases. Well, the argument has led to this conversation, so maybe that’s a win for Things Working Out. Humans are so fragile and full of feelings. It’s been so much more manageable now that he’s decided to actively rely on Moonjumper more. There remains the corrosive simmer of resentment that he needs to rely on anyone, that he’s in this situation in the first place, but where it once devoured every corner of his thoughts, it now must contend with the newly-awakened part of him that relishes the comforts he thought he had forsaken.

“I know, I had a balcony view of the shenanigans,” Moonjumper says. “Once they started trying to send back the orders, everything descended into chaos.”

“Oh, I know. We were switching out the replacement orders too.” After a while, the kettle whistles, and Snatcher pours the hot water into his mug and dunks a tea bag. He blows on the hot tea, having been reminded from many mistakes that humans also can’t tolerate extreme temperatures. “Who woulda thought Bow would be the real mastermind behind all that?”

Moonjumper chuckles. “Oh, she’s a tricky little one, alright. It’s easy to forget that she’s spent her whole life running neck-and-neck with Hat.”

“Still so timid though.” Snatcher clicks his tongue. “She knows what she’s doing, but she won’t put her foot down about it.”

“I’ve tried to encourage her about that,” Moonjumper says. “Do you think it’s working?”

“Haven’t noticed much difference.”

“Drat. I’ll keep trying.”

“Mm.” Snatcher takes a slow sip. His mood has picked up since the afternoon, or at least he’s distracted enough from the source of his anxiety that it no longer pricks at his every nerve under his skin. Hell, maybe he can even try to sleep once he finishes his tea.

“Maybe you ought to try too.”

“Hmm?” Snatcher says into his cup.

“Encouraging Bow. It might make a difference if it comes from all of us. She does spend a lot of time with you these days,” Moonjumper says.

“You want _me_ to be encouraging?”

Moonjumper leans forward on the table, resting their chin on their hand smugly. “Well, _you_ were the one who brought up her shyness first.”

Snatcher tilts his cup higher to block out their face, almost sloshing himself with hot water in the process. “I was just making a comment.”

“Meaning you’ve been paying enough attention to notice.”

He glares at them. “What are you implying?”

They just wiggle their eyebrows. “I don’t know. What am I implying?”

Snatcher clacks the mug down on the counter. “Ergh. Now you’re just being obnoxious. I’m going to bed.”

Moonjumper rises and follows him out into the hall toward the bridge. “Tsk. Just think about it, will you? I’m not commenting on anything that isn’t already patently obvious, before you tell me I’m projecting onto you again.”

He almost pauses in his stride. Obvious? What’s obvious? (He already knows.) “Fine, I’ll _think_ about it.”

“And then do something about it,” they drawl from behind. “Preferably.”

They both emerge in the main room, dimly lit from the lack of activity. Snatcher curves toward the bedroom corridor, mug in hand. Moonjumper floats toward the window into a beam of moonlight. “Goodnight, Snatcher.”

He lifts a hand. “Night...thanks.”

* * *

“They don’t have parents, Moon.” It’s another late night kitchen chat. Snatcher’s not even particularly upset about anything else, but for some odd reason, the No Parents revelation is sticking like a burr in his mind. He’s sure that wouldn’t have bothered him before. He’s sure he must have intuited it on some level already and just never cared, but right now it’s playing on repeat like an earworm.

Moonjumper is sitting in their usual seat next to him at the kitchen table. Even this has become habit. “Yes, I know.”

Snatcher lifts his head to stare incredulously. “You _knew?_ ”

Moonjumper quirks an eyebrow. “Yes?”

“Since when?”

“Erm, a while ago, I think. Bow told me. It’s rather odd for a couple of children to be traveling across the galaxy-”

“Multiple galaxies,” Snatcher cuts in automatically.

“What?” They stare at him like he’s insane.

Snatcher throws his hands up. “That’s what they told me!”

“Well, it’s rather odd for a couple of children to be traveling across _multiple_ galaxies alone, so naturally, I asked.”

“Huh.”

Moonjumper laughs. “Don’t tell me this has never come up until _now._ ”

He leans away, suddenly defensive. “Well why would it?”

“Snatcher, did you really just think, ‘Huh, couple kids doing dangerous stunts with no adults. Seems natural?’”

“I didn’t think about it at all! I was trying to contract their souls!”

Moonjumper covers their face with their hand, shaking their head. “You’ve had literal weeks since then.”

“Well a thousand pardons for having a few other things occupying my mind,” Snatcher says through his teeth.

They detect the lack of fangs and wave away his sarcasm. “I refuse to believe you were that oblivious, so I’m just going to chalk it up to denial.”

“Ugh, denial about what?”

“Nevermind.”

“Wh! Don’t ‘nevermind’ me! Spit it out!”

They swivel their head in his direction. “You’re just going to get all defensive.”

“I-” And then he barely manages to stop himself from saying “I don’t get defensive!” in a defensive tone of voice. From Moonjumper’s expression, they were anticipating exactly that. Snatcher groans. “I will try not to be defensive.”

They examine him for a bit, as if deciding whether they believe him, then sigh. “I really think you knew but didn’t want to deal with the information, so you ignored it.”

“If that’s true, then why would it be bothering me so much now?”

Moonjumper shrugs, but the motion is slightly too calculated to read as casual. “Maybe something’s changed in the meantime.”

They’re trying to lead him to a conclusion, that much is clear. In the past, this would annoy him, but now Snatcher uses it as an emotional tether to guide him through the murk in his own head. He even thinks he knows what the conclusion is without their guidance, but he appreciates them refraining from announcing it for him. Because maybe...maybe he’s not ready to admit it yet. Maybe putting it out in the open makes a lot of things very real all at once, and the aftershocks of that would shudder him apart by the atom.

“Yeah, maybe,” he says. It’s safe, as long as it’s vague.

“I get the sense you don’t want to talk about that,” Moonjumper says. There’s an edge of weariness to their voice, and Snatcher wonders about their patience again. He does _not_ want to talk about any of that, but he has known since the cruise that Moonjumper does. 

“I mean...maybe you could talk about what you want to,” he offers.

Moonjumper pats him on the shoulder. “I appreciate the gesture, but it would be hard if _you’re_ not ready to talk about some things, since most of what I want to say involves _you._ ”

Snatcher rubs the back of his neck. “I...figured.” Worth a shot.

* * *

“I think I care about them,” Snatcher whispers into his hands, because he can’t look at Moonjumper when he admits this. The kids are sleeping, snuggled up with each other, after the stressful events of the day. Even in slumber, Hat has wrapped a protective arm around her sibling. Snatcher watches them from amidst his pile of bedding in front of the window.

“Yeah,” Moonjumper breathes. “It’s kind of hard not to.”

“But I don’t know how it happened. I mean, you were friends with them from the start. I was contractually obliged.”

“You’re the one who makes the contracts, you don’t actually have to abide by them.”

Snatcher’s eyebrows shoot up. “What kind of lawyer are you?”

They roll their eyes. “We didn’t actually graduate, remember?”

He huffs. “Contracts are still valid legal documents, regardless of whether any of the parties are licensed.”

“I’m just saying, no one needed to follow your dubious contracts at any point ever. I’m quite sure it was the _soul collateral and death threats_ that were the most compelling of your arguments, which wasn’t an issue in the case of a contract edited by hand by a child telling you you had to be nice to her.”

“They both made it very clear they could handle the death threats just fine,” Snatcher mutters. He and Moonjumper both know he’s deflecting from the real topic of discussion, but he’s going to keep stalling as long as they’ll indulge him because this has already been a challenging afternoon. These adventuring mishaps stand out as reminders that, in spite of their tenacity, the kids _can_ get hurt, and there’s always the chance one or both won’t recover from it one day. The thought of the spaceship permanently silent withers him inside, makes it hard to breathe. “I don’t know what to do.”

Moonjumper’s gaze traces his own to the sleeping kids. “I mean, do you want to know my opinion?”

“I have a feeling you’re gonna share it.”

They scoff. “I don’t have to. There’s a lot I don’t say.”

Meaning: _I have a lot I want to say._ Snatcher sighs. “What do you think?” he asks.

“From my perspective, you’ve been showing you care about them for a while now. And not your past self. _You._ The you that exists right now is the one choosing to care. I just-I’m having a hard time understanding why that wouldn’t be a good thing.”

“It doesn’t make a lot of sense when you put it that way, but…” What can he say? It scares him. It just does. How is he meant to untangle that? It comes back again: being alive is to constantly destroy and recreate the self, but not all destructions are equal. He admits he cares about the kids, invites them into the sum of himself, and his entire world reshuffles, and who is he after that?

Moonjumper rests a hand briefly on his shoulder, just long enough to slow his thoughts. “Don’t get too far ahead of yourself. Trust me, as someone who’s had to deal with basically a whole existence of uncertainty, you don’t want to think too many steps in advance.”

“Easier said than done, don’t you think?” Just another thing that was easier to do as a ghost. Snatcher tries to remember what that felt like, but once again, finds that detachment inaccessible now. It’s been only three months as a living, breathing, feeling human, but time moves fast for humans. So many things are urgent, and so many things matter. He can no longer find that essential sensation of not caring.

“Yes, but not impossible.” They nudge him with their elbow. “And aren’t you lucky, I already went through all that, so my advice comes from personal experience.”

Just another hint at the things Moonjumper doesn’t say.

“Yeah,” he murmurs. “Lucky.”

* * *

“Kid, when can I open my eyes? You said it would be a few seconds.” It has been more than a few seconds. Snatcher has been sitting at the base of the pillow stack, complying with a demand to close his eyes for a “surprise” that he’s starting to deem not worth the hassle.

“Oh hush, it hasn’t been that long,” Moonjumper says from off to the side. “We’re adding some finishing touches.”

“This had to be done now?”

“Waiiit okay?” Hat Kid whines.

Snatcher holds his hands out in exasperation but then someone--feels like Bow--grabs his hands and places a round fabric object into them.

“Okay, now open,” Bow Kid says with hushed excitement.

When he does, he finds himself holding a replica of the mail hat he crafted to make deliveries to his minions.

“Tada!” Bow cries, throwing a handful of confetti.

“It’s your mail hat!” Hat adds, throwing her own confetti.

“With accompanying badges,” Moonjumper says, floating up behind the two and resting a hand on each kid’s shoulder.

Snatcher squints up at them. “Wha?”

“We remade it,” Hat Kid explains with a grin. “Since your other one is way too big now.”

“Uh, thanks, kiddo, but uh…”

“Wait, wait, hang on,” Hat says. She takes the hat in his hands and spins it around so that the lineup of badges on its brim are clearly visible. “Okay, see, look, ‘cause you’ve been complaining about not having your powers and you’re all weak and blah blah, we made you this so you can use Moonjumper’s badges to fight and stuff. They have ones that can blast things and the gripshot hook--I love that one--is kinda like being able to fly a little bit, so it’s almost like you have magic powers again.”

“Yeah, since you’ve been showing us how to do alchemy and making us food and reading to us, we wanted to make you something to say thank you,” Bow continues.

“O-ohh.” That’s all he can get out of his mouth before the lump in his throat strangles him.

Hat Kid barrels on. “The hat has powers too. I modified the Brewing Hat, ‘cause you’re a potion brewer. Here, try it on! Let me show you.”

“...Kay.” He puts the hat on. It fits perfectly, and a thrum runs through him as it interfaces with him. It’s not that the hat feels alive exactly, but it attunes itself to him and as much as an inanimate object can, it waits for his intent.

“Yeah! You feel that?”

He nods.

“Okay! I already set it up with some random potions from your lab, but they should be in the pocket dimension inventory. Now you just have to think of them and select one to summon.”

This should be nonsense instruction, but the moment he mentally reaches out, the hat responds, humming internally and conjuring up the selection of potions available in neurotransmission and synapse-fire. He _feels_ them there in this extradimensional space, barely any different from his own pocket dimensions made of shadow and magic. There’s a generic corrosion cocktail in there, so he reaches for that, pulling it toward him. It pops through a mental threshold and blinks into existence and drops into his palm.

“So? Do you like it?” The two kids watch him with wide eyes and barely contained grins.

Snatcher is trying very hard to breathe normally because he told himself weeks ago that he was done crying in front of kids, but these particular kids are making him work very hard at that right now.

“Snatcher...are-are you okay?” Bow Kid leans forward to peer at him, and Snatcher shoves the brim of the hat farther down over his face and turns away.

“It’s fine,” he croaks. “Thanks…”

Hat Kid giggles. “Does that mean he likes it?” she whispers.

“Yes, I think he likes it, my dear” Moonjumper replies softly.

Who’s idea was this, he wants to ask, but that would require him to speak coherently and risk making eye contact. “Yeah, it’s good,” he says in an attempt to stay somewhat natural in the conversation. The fact that he’s the center of everyone’s attention is not helping matters. Right now, he wants nothing more than to fall into a well of shadow and hide away for a while.

Vanessa had showered him with gifts in the past, increasingly elaborate and grandiose as the noose tightened around him. The ones he misses though are the simple ones, the ones from the beginning when the two of them were young and clumsy with their feelings but earnest--when she remembered a book he wanted, when she sang him that song he liked, when she tried to make him a cake while he was sick but got the measurements wrong because she’d been baking in the dead of night to avoid the scrutiny of her mother.

It’s just a hat, on the face of things. As with everything though, it’s about the message underneath and the fact that it was created as a way to say “thank you.” It’s about the attention they paid to it, and the way it fits just right. When was the last time he’s gotten something like this?

His parka lands on him in a flump, and the surprise makes him jerk up before wiping his eyes.

“Snatcher! Put your jacket on, we’re gonna go to Subcon so you can test out the badges!” Hat Kid shouts, fastening her yellow cape and twirling out toward the teleporter.

Moonjumper floats into view, their hands clasped in front of them. “There’s still a bit more to the gift.”

Snatcher takes advantage of the fact that they’re blocking the kids from view to scrub the jacket sleeve across his face to clear the tears that had been gathering. He sniffs hard and gets to his feet. “There’s more?”

“Yeah, but we can’t show you in the ship, since it’ll be destructive,” says Bow Kid. She holds out his scarf for him.

“Huh. Sounds fun.” He finishes bundling up, nerves tingling in anticipation of returning to the forest. All four of them stand on the teleporter pad and zip back down to Earth.

They land in a clearing, far off from the central hollow. A few Subconites who had been idling there startle and scatter into the bushes before poking their heads out.

“Oh, hey newbies! Hey Second Boss! Hey-wait.” The glowing gold beacons of their faces dim as they lean forward to stare at Snatcher. A prolonged gasp warbles from the cluster of hoods. “BOSS!” They charge forward from the brush, shoving past Moonjumper and the kids who all dart out of the way, and pile onto Snatcher.

“Agh! Hey! Keep it down, will you!” He stumbles as they knock him off balance.

“What happened to you? We haven’t seen you like this in...uh, forever!”

“Yeah! I almost didn’t recognize you!”

“Is that why you’ve been gone?”

Snatcher pries them off and sets them down at his feet. “Ugh, yeah, uh something happened, and I’m stuck like this. For now.” He glares down at them. “You lot had better keep this quiet. You know how bad it’ll be if news of this somehow gets across the river.”

One of the Subconites makes a zipping motion across their face. “You got it, Boss. Dead quiet. No problem. I’ll make sure to tell everyone else to keep quiet too.”

Snatcher slaps a hand to his forehead, and the three eavesdroppers behind him all snort. “Don’t tell anyone anything! Just-I was never here!”

“You got it!”

Another Subconite tugs at his parka. “Why _are_ you here, Boss? Is it a secret mission?”

“Yeah! We’re here to test out some new gadgets!” Hat Kid bounds forward. She waves Moonjumper over. “Give him the thing!”

They laugh and hold out their hands, summoning a beam of silver light. A slender, deep purple umbrella appears, and they hold it out to Snatcher. “The final piece of the ensemble.”

“Really? An umbrella?” There’s obviously more to it though, considering how much the mail hat isn’t just a mail hat. Sure enough, as soon as he takes it, the hat mechanisms thrum again, and send a link down through his arm and into the umbrella which awakens to the connection. Fully attuned, the hat, Snatcher, and the umbrella form an unbroken circuit, all responsive to him with the same sensitivity of his own limbs.

“Most of the badges link to the umbrella,” Moonjumper explains. “Like the projectile badge. Here.” They reach forward and make an adjustment to the badge on his hat, and the energy buzzing through the link shifts and revs up. The handle of the umbrella warms in his hand, the core glowing from within. “Give it a try,” Moonjumper says gleefully.

Snatcher flicks his gaze from them to the powered-up umbrella, then hefts it up and points it at a boulder on the other side of the clearing. In the same way he pulled the potion from the hatspace, he mentally encourages the flow of energy into the umbrella, feels it tremble with it until it hits another threshold. The instant he nudges it past, an explosive beam fires from the tip, whipping up leaves in its eddies and lifting his arm slightly as it blasts into the rock, sustaining itself for a couple seconds before finally petering out. Snatcher stares at the smoldering streak that runs up the face of the rock, crackled with molten webs of violet. He whips his head to Moonjumper, and a broad grin spreads across his face. “Hah! Hahaha!”

They keep that same smarmy smile on their face as he cackles. Snatcher activates the badge again, holding his arm steadier this time, now that he knows what to expect, and carves a crater into a distant tree.

“Woo! Yeah, Boss! You’re so cool!” the gaggle of Subconites cheers from the side. Snatcher is sure that the cluster has increased in size.

“If you let the charge build up longer, the beam comes out stronger,” Bow Kid says, coming up and patting the umbrella. “But it’s harder to aim like that, and it takes longer. You have to plan ahead.”

“My foes had better plan their funerals ahead is what,” Snatcher says, a bit maniacally.

“Let’s not get too carried away,” Moonjumper says pleasantly. “It’s meant to be for self-defense.”

“Yeah, sure,” Snatcher says breathlessly. “I usually think of charged particle cannons when I think of self-defense.”

“Try the gripshot next,” Hat Kid says.

“Yeah? How’s that work?”

She hops up next to him. “Once you activate that badge-” she pauses and waits for him to do that, “-the umbrella will shoot out a grappling hook, like this.” She aims her own umbrella and fires it at a branch overhead. Sure enough, the tip of the umbrella splits into a claw and launches out, snagging the branch in a vice grip. Once it finds purchase, the cable that connects it tenses, and Hat Kid whips toward the branch, using it to swing herself up on top of it.

“Do the acrobatics come with it?” Snatcher says, putting a hand on his hip.

“Haha, no you have to practice that part. That’s why we came here!”

“I think I like the laser beam better.”

She jumps down from the branch and the umbrella pops open, breaking the fall and letting her glide down. “That’s another badge. But come on, the gripshot lets you zip around, or grab things from long distance.”

“But not mugs,” says Bow Kid, with the half-lidded gaze of one who has seen Hat Kid try to do that more times than she could count. “Do not try it with mugs.”

“I want to hear the story behind that,” Snatcher tells her, earning a plaintive head shake from Bow. He lines up the umbrella with Hat Kid’s tree branch. “Okay, here goes.”

Same as hers, the hook catches on the branch and winches him up, so quickly it almost yanks the umbrella from his hand. He yelps as it flings him up at the tree, and unlike Hat Kid, he does not manage the graceful flip upright over the top of the branch and instead slams into the bottom of it, feels the hook disengage, and wraps his arms around the limb to avoid plummeting back down.

Hat Kid collapses in peals of laughter, while Bow cups her hands and shouts up at him, “You can just parachute back down like Hattie did!”

“What, you want me to just jump?” It’s not easy to cling like a sloth to the branch, especially while still maintaining grip on the umbrella.

“Switch to the hover badge! It’ll catch you automatically!” Hat tells him.

He cranes his neck to assess how far the ground is. Not enough to kill him--probably--but enough to hurt pretty badly. He glances behind the kids to Moonjumper and gives them a pleading look that he hopes is actually visible from this distance. They have their arms folded but give him a discreet thumbs up close to their chest. Snatcher exhales steadily, then peels himself off the branch and falls.

There is a single, heart-stopping second that he’s in freefall, and then a signal zings up his arm and the umbrella opens, just as expected. Snatcher stumbles as his feet touch back down and drops to his knees. “You travel like this all the time?” he gasps at the kids. “You’re crazy.”

Hat Kid pats him on the back. “It takes practice, but it’s not so bad.”

“Maybe swinging in the trees wasn’t the best to start with,” Bow Kid muses.

“You don’t say.” He staggers upright, dusting his pants off. “The laser beam is definitely better.”

They practice a little more, this time focusing on using the gripshot to pull items to him instead. He manages to snag each of the Subconites who have graciously volunteered to be test subjects. One of them lands on his face. It’s a work in progress.

“Okay, try that cherry over there now,” Hat Kid suggests. It’s a little farther than the Subconites, so a bit of a level up from the first challenge. He fires, but his aim is off, and the hook skims off the top of the cherry and instead embeds itself into the tree behind it.

The cable tenses. “Uh oh.” Snatcher careens forward, toppling into the mulch as the gripshot drags him along the forest floor. Twigs whip his face as it tows him, sending dirt spewing in his wake.

“Let go of the umbrella!” Hat Kid shouts, increasingly distant.

Oh. Right! He opens his hand, watches the umbrella go skittering off into the brush like a rampant ballista shot and hears the thunk of it as it spears the tree. He tumbles to a halt, flopping onto his back and spitting bark fragments out. The patter of frantic footsteps approach, though Moonjumper beats them there.

“Good grief, Snatcher, are you alright?” They help him sit up.

“Ow,” he says. He holds up his right hand, which he had instinctively braced himself with to slow down. The skin under the coating of dirt is red and inflamed from the friction burn and covered in wispy scrapes.

The kids gasp, crouching down next to him. “Ohh,” Hat Kid moans, examining the damage. She brushes at his hair, picking the detritus that’s tangled in it. Bow Kid reaches out to take his hand but catches herself and cradles it softly instead, carefully avoiding the abraded palm.

“I think that’s enough practice for today,” Moonjumper says.

“Yeah, sounds about right,” Snatcher wheezes. He waves a hand at the fussing children. “Kiddos, it’s fine, I’m fine.”

They both give him the Big Round Eyes, even as they teleport back up to the ship. “Are you sure?” Bow Kid asks in a small voice.

“Yeah, kid, I already punched a mirror. This is nothing.” He pokes her in the cheek and then conceals his wince when flexing his hand _stings._ They gather the first aid kit in the bathroom, and Snatcher stares down at his hand, hissing through his teeth when he realizes he’s going to have to clean it.

Moonjumper snaps a finger. “Oh, I think we forgot the umbrella back at the clearing.” They turn to the kids. “Why don’t you two run down and grab it before we get carried away, and I’ll get started here?”

“Oh, right, I totally forgot,” Hat Kid says. She and Bow race out of the bathroom.

Snatcher exhales with relief. “Thanks, didn’t really want them to-” Moonjumper yanks his hand forward and runs it under a blast of water, and Snatcher shrieks.

Soon enough, they’ve scrubbed the dirt out of his wound and wrapped it with gauze. Snatcher stares vacantly at the wall, clenching his teeth from the burn of the antiseptic that still lingers. “You’re merciless when you want to be,” he murmurs.

Moonjumper dries their hands off. “I had to be quick about it, unless you wanted them to come back in time to learn all those new curse words.”

“I’m just saying, a little warning next time.”

“Hm,” Moonjumper says primly.

The kids burst back into the bathroom. “We got your umbrella,” Hat Kid pants. “Oh you did your hand already.”

“Yup, no problem, kiddo,” he says. From there it’s just a matter of cleaning the rest of the dirt off his clothes and hair. The kids stick colorful band-aids onto the small scrapes on his face, which is much easier to bite his tongue for.

Moonjumper sticks around the ship for the rest of the day, even though aside from the hand, Snatcher really is fine. It’s helpful to have their presence though, since otherwise he’d have to field the brunt of the kids’ fretting on his own.

The two of them wait until the kids fall asleep before changing out the gauze on his hand. Snatcher white-knuckles the edge of the sink to keep quiet as Moonjumper reapplies the antiseptic. He’s glad he doesn’t have to do this alone.

“So, the hat idea,” Snatcher says.

“Hm?”

“Was that your idea, or theirs?”

“Oh theirs entirely. They just asked me for help with the badges.”

Snatcher huffs a laugh. “Huh. Gotta say, I’m impressed.”

“I’m impressed you held it together back there.”

“Heh. Yeah. It was close.” He watches them wrap fresh bandages around his hand. “It’s just-” He has to press his other fist to his mouth to compose himself. Moonjumper pauses, watches him. “It’s been a while since…” Snatcher lets out a shaky breath. “I forgot what it was like.”

They finish wrapping and pat the back of his hand once to signal completion. “I understand.” They rise and start putting away the first aid kit. “You know, they’re not here now. You don’t have to suppress it.”

Snatcher squeezes his eyes shut. There are a few tears there now, but not as pressing as they had been earlier. “Nah, it’s fine right now.”

“Alright, as long as you’re sure.” 

They’re not overt about it, but Snatcher can hear them resigning themself to further waiting. He stands and catches them by the arm. “Wait, Moon.” They freeze. “I…” He sighs. “Let’s talk?”

They pause for a second then nod, tight-lipped and serious. “Yeah. Sure.” 

Snatcher swallows hard and leads the way to the kitchen. He makes tea in complete silence and the two of them take their usual seats. The refrigerator hums at them while they sit, the sound punctuated by Snatcher’s occasional sips of the tea.

“We don’t have to,” they say. “I mean, if you aren’t really ready.”

Snatcher huffs through his teeth. “If we waited till then, we’d be waiting forever.”

“Heh. Fair enough.”

He’s the one who suggested they talk, but now that they’re here, he doesn’t know how to start. But just as the silence starts to drag, Moonjumper speaks up.

“The things you said on the cruise back then...they worried me.” They brush their thumbs over each other, and Snatcher is thankful he at least has his tea to fidget with. “And hurt too. I thought we were getting along a little better at the time, but...I don’t know. All this time, I kept wondering what it was I’d been doing wrong, why everything I said and did seemed to make you hate me.”

Snatcher stares at the trails of steam twisting out of the mug. He’s never really interrogated that--not in a coherent way, at least. It always felt like a competition, like there were never meant to be two of them, and somehow he always felt like he was losing.

Was I?” Moonjumper asks. “Doing something wrong, I mean. Or is it just the fact that I exist?”

He’s already out of his depth in this conversation, but he already committed himself to trying to keep up. “I-” he stammers. “You-you were-” Try again. “It was like seeing my own ghost,” he manages. “Which feels very different from being your own ghost.”

“I think I know the feeling,” Moonjumper murmurs. “When I first saw you like this…”

Snatcher shakes his head helplessly. “It’s jarring.”

“It really is.”

“ _He_ was the start of all my problems. I didn’t want to see him--you.” An epiphany pings in his mind as he speaks. “I _hated_ him, he _let_ this,” and Snatcher lifts his hands to grip his upper arms, barely aware he’s doing it, “happen to me.” He has to take a moment to catch his breath, his heart suddenly pounding in his ears. “I _really_ did not want to see him, or talk to him, or be his _friend._ ”

“Snatcher...do you think it’s his-your- _our_ fault that happened?”

He laughs humorlessly. “Don’t try to tell me it isn’t. Really, don’t.”

Moonjumper leans forward to look at him directly. “But it’s _not!_ ”

Snatcher’s hands clench the mug in a stranglehold. “Then what?” he shouts, voice cracking, then immediately glances over his shoulder, even though the bedroom is several halls over. He lowers his voice again. “Were we just doomed from the start? You’re telling me,” Snatcher says, “there wasn’t any way to have changed things?”

“Like what?” they ask, equally hoarse. “Would you have ever believed your wife--the one you loved--would murder you?” They look down at his bandaged hand, and as they do, awareness blooms in the form of pain that Snatcher is putting too much pressure on it. “Your hand,” they sigh, reaching over and prying his stony grip from the mug.

Snatcher lets it lie limp on the table. He knew, hadn’t he, that Vanessa was hurting him? Surely, he had to have known. But she was hurting too--so she’d convinced him--and no one ever said love was supposed to be easy. Through thick and thin, he’d vowed, and he had done his best. It didn’t matter.

“I suppose that’s one point where we differ,” Moonjumper says. “When you became human again, it _was_ like being haunted by my own reflection, but at that point I had already tried to detach myself from that. You insisted many times that I wasn’t you, and I really did stop trying to be, but...seeing the person I remember being again, I realized I couldn’t fully separate. That person wasn’t me, maybe, but he was a part of me once? If that makes sense…

“And when I saw that person in pain, I thought how could I ever be happy as long as he wasn’t? I couldn’t hate him. Because in a sort of way, he was me.”

The tea has gone cold by now, and Snatcher has hardly touched any of it. He’s not sure how to respond. Their meaning swims around his head, and he doesn’t even have the excuse of being drunk. At least this time, while he may not have the words to explain himself on his own, Moonjumper’s conceptualization has paved the road for him partway, and he treads carefully in the tracks they left behind for him.

“You wouldn’t hate your past because you wouldn’t hate yourself,” he says.

They make an attempt at a smile, but it’s a bit shaky. “I get to be here, seeing the world, making friends with the little ones, becoming my own person all because, well, because of you. I’m thankful at least for that.”

“Is-is that why you stuck around all this time? Even after everything I put you through? You still dropped everything to help me when I asked.”

They laugh softly. “To be honest, when you asked, I was thrilled. That was the most you’d ever reached out to me. But you could have been a lot nicer about some things to be sure.”

“Yeah, I know...sorry.” Snatcher rubs the back of his neck, gritting his teeth. “I think maybe...you were just the easiest target to blame. I mean, you just seemed so much more together than I felt! I had to watch me-who-wasn’t-me going around and smiling and laughing and being so...like the old me, like nothing had happened, when _I_ couldn’t have that or feel that anymore.”

Moonjumper laughs again, but this time, brittle. “You know, that does make a lot of sense. It does give some context to what you said on the cruise. But I’ve never...once I managed to make sense of my own memories, I never was trying to-to _replace_ you. You know that now right?”

Snatcher blinks. That’s the word he’s been searching for. “Yeah, I-” Snatcher’s mouth is dry, so the words stick to his tongue. “I’m starting to get that.” He takes a sip of the very tepid tea, more as a distraction than anything.

“I guess I just figured, after all we’ve been through in-” they breathe, “-the past, you would want to have someone in your corner unconditionally, someone who would _get it,_ you know? _I_ always wanted someone to be in my corner.” They press their fingers to their temple. “I’m not well-adjusted. I just hide it differently.”

He’s starting to get that too--now that they’ve talked quite a bit, now that he’s been paying attention. “You...you said something like that on the cruise.”

Moonjumper goes quiet, eyes slightly glazed as though remembering. “I get why you wouldn’t have wanted to talk to me in the beginning if you felt like that. I didn’t even realize who you were at first. Probably could have avoided a lot of misunderstandings that way...I was just too desperate to find someone, anyone to connect with.” They grimace. “I mean, you probably remember what it was like, waking up and realizing you were supposed to be dead.”

“I try not to, but...yeah.”

“But there was something off about it too. On some level I knew I hadn’t _actually_ gone through all those awful things, but I _remembered_ them as if I had. How do you tell the difference, when you never had a distinct identity before that?”

(In a frozen cellar, in a forgotten century, the body of the late prince transmutes, stirs. Then it shudders and spasms as it floods the unsuspecting spirit which occupies it with fragmented memories coalescing. The body remembers pain, and it remembers cold, and it remembers a broken heart. The spirit inside it wades through what the body remembers and sinks deeper, tangles itself among them. What is happening to me, it wonders? And just like that, it has become a Me. A thumping of footsteps approaches the cellar door, and the body remembers fear, backs up into a moonbeam and falls up into the light until the body stops the fear.)

“I didn’t know what had happened. I only knew that I wasn’t supposed to be alive--before I figured out I wasn’t even that--and everything had changed. The world had frozen and died, and I couldn’t remember how.”

(The spirit wanders, shivering despite being undead, because the body still remembers cold. The wind howls through the barren trees and whips through its cloak, and the spirit latches onto the memory that there should be leaves and life because even winter does not kill this forest so completely. It whimpers at the sight and startles at its own sound, grasping at its throat. Once the first cry comes out, more follow, because there is the broken heart, remember?

“Is anyone there?” it cries, but it’s drowned out by the rushing wind. “Please...anyone?”

The spirit wanders, and finds statuesque corpses, crystalline and gleaming, the faces within shrouded. It wanders, and it calls, and nobody answers but the echo of its own voice spiralling back in with the gale.

“Can anyone hear me?”

Snatcher never experienced this, not exactly. But Moonjumper tells him, and because they know each other, Snatcher _knows_ this too.)

Moonjumper’s head is bowed as they speak, resting heavily in their hands. “You get good at talking to yourself when there’s no one else to talk to. When I found you, I was so excited to have _anyone_ there at all. When I figured out who you were, I was excited to have someone who _knew._ ” They wipe their eyes, still keeping their head down. “I know you were struggling too, I get it. I just-” A small sob breaks out. “I just really wish you could have been there.”

They know what it’s like to be alone, they said, and now that he’s finally paying attention, he understands. He thought they never hurt because they always seemed to smile. He thought they never cried because he never saw it. He never looked, did he?

Snatcher remembers a hand on his shoulder in his broken hours. He reaches out, puts an arm around them. He’s stiff and awkward, but they collapse into him the way he once did. At the start of it all, he was a complete stranger to offering comfort, but he’s been holding little hands and cradling little heads against him for weeks now, so this too no longer feels unnatural. Moonjumper cries for the years of keeping silent and talking to the wind, and Snatcher stays and grounds them the way they did for him weeks ago.

“I’m here now.”


End file.
